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COPYRIGHT 2004 Akron Beacon Journal
Byline: Jane Snow
OBETZ, Ohio _ All heck broke loose recently in Obetz. The police blocked the highways in and out, and many of the 3,800 residents careened around Lancaster Park like pinballs, tending to the 50,000 or so visitors who came to celebrate zucchinis.
Sort of.
The four-day hoedown was in fact Obetz's 19th annual Zucchinifest, although zucchinis were embarrassingly hard to find in the central Ohio village.
Jim Ryan, owner of Possum Holler Pizza, used to make zucchini pizza for the festival, but on Saturday, his booth carried only sausage and pepperoni.
"I had it for about 10 years, but no one bought it," Ryan said.
At the Parker & Sons Bar-Be-Que booth, Derrick Parker reeled off the menu as he brushed sauce on a slab of ribs.
"We got collard greens, sweet potatoes, corn bread. No zucchini."
Nonetheless, zucchini spirit was thick in the air. Zucchini T-shirts and zucchini pins were everywhere, and a vast array of zucchini queens, princesses and little misses in convertibles and pickup trucks rolled down Lancaster Street in the Zucchinifest parade.
"We're about the oldest (zucchini festival) in the country now," festival chairman Mark Rinehart said as Bethany Lee, Junior Little Miss Zucchini Festival, floated past in a pickup.
But where are the zucchinis?
"This administration...
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